


thirty minutes away

by honeyedrop



Series: make me thaw [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, Slice of Life, it's about the yearning, taylor swift is my religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26519140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyedrop/pseuds/honeyedrop
Summary: July is blistering, incandescent—the thawing of a heart frozen solid.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu
Series: make me thaw [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903228
Comments: 54
Kudos: 309
Collections: Osaaka Week 2020





	thirty minutes away

**Author's Note:**

> so i said i wasn't gonna write a sequel. but [osaaka week](https://twitter.com/osaakaweek) and [hq swift week](https://twitter.com/HQSwiftWeek2020) happened to fall under the same dates and my hand slipped
> 
>  **osaaka week prompts** : day 3, tier 3 (the quote i used in the series notes) and day 6, longing  
>  **hq swift week prompt** : cornelia street (from the lover album), day 6
> 
> \+ mentions of drinking, more texting, pseudo instagram posts, and lots of food. i would recommend reading the first part before reading this
> 
> please listen to this [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0whLelfbHXymlfEDOBVNtl?si=BDk1d-Z3Q7-eGtxV22eAhg) (don't shuffle!! i swear it's worth it)

* * *

**君がため**

Kimi ga tame

**惜しからざりし**

oshikarazarishi

**命さへ**

inochi sae

**ながくもがなと**

nagaku mogana to

**おもひけるかな**

omoikeru kana

_My wish is now_

_that I might prolong the life_

_I was once prepared_

_to give up without regret_

_simply to be with you._

— Fujiwara Yoshitaka, Poem 50, _Hyakunin Isshu_

* * *

Keiji promises himself he’ll do things right.

He will not ask for too much. He will call when the days permit, maintain his silence when the nights forbid. _I love you_ will remain tucked away in the farthest crevices of his heart until bare hands unearth it from the ground.

He will not give too little. He will carve out a place and time for his lover. The earth will cease to exist beyond these borders. Within the four corners of his apartment, the four posts of his bed, there is no such thing as time. There is only infinity. Mornings do not exist, midnights do not call for him. He is not for the world’s taking. He will belong to no one but to the arms that hold him as the moon smiles at them from her throne in the sky.

He will take his time. Give it four weeks. Then, three more months. Then another six for good measure. He will light the candle when he’s certain that it’s far, far away from the winds that knock against his windows. His hands will shield the flame. Never mind that it burns his skin. He will burn out before the candle does.

He’ll get it right next time.

* * *

For the first time in months, Keiji looks through the clothes on the other side of his closet—the one without his lounge shorts and print shirts he’d been cycling through ever since he started working from home. He picks out a steel blue dress shirt and a beige turtleneck, holding them up in front of his laptop. On the screen, Bokuto taps his chin.

“Which one?” Keiji is breathless, the hangers weighing like steel in his hands.

“Well, that depends,” Bokuto answers, brows knitted together.

“On what?”

“Are you trying to look pretty or do you wanna look hot?”

Keiji nearly drops his clothes to the floor. “Sorry?”

“Do you want to look pretty or do you want to look hot?” Bokuto repeats the question, enunciating his words as best as he can while chewing on a bite of banana bread.

“Maybe I’m thinking about this too hard.” Keiji lays the clothes out on his bed and slides back into his chair.

It has been five days since his last delivery from Onigiri Miya—five days since what Bokuto had called The Standoff, when Keiji had made a blubbering idiot of himself by his apartment door and Miya Osamu watched him from six feet away. Before going on his way, Osamu tightened his cap around his head, wolfish grin dancing on his lips. Keiji imagined the softest shade of pink dusting the chef’s cheeks, but he could never tell with the cap casting a shadow down his face.

Even before Keiji could set the paper bag down on his makeshift work desk, his phone was buzzing with messages. He’d found out over the next couple of days that Osamu was equally capable of being charmingly frank as his twin brother was.

“I wanna see ya,” he once slipped into their phone call.

“What, like a date?”

Keiji had kidded with him then, but now he finds himself hunched in front of his laptop, clad in boxers and a _Meteo Attack_ merchandise shirt. They were planning to go on a video call at seven in the evening while eating dinner. The outfit constituted around fifty percent of Keiji’s concerns; the other half was the mortifying ordeal of cooking for himself.

On any other occasion, the Lawson near his apartment building would have supplied plenty of options for him (their packed gyudon was worth every yen Keiji spent on it). But this was a proper date, and with a man who cooked for a living no less. For all the time Keiji had been spending on his wardrobe dilemma, Osamu could very well be roasting a whole chicken in his apartment.

“Do you want me to get Tsum-Tsum over here?” Bokuto asks. “He’s better at this sort of thing. Sakusa-kun could help, too, but I think he’s even worse than me.”

“ _No_ ,” Keiji answers, voice coming out a little harsher than he’d expected. “I mean, no.” He pats at his cheeks with his hands. “I’ll figure this out.”

Bokuto nods in agreement. “Right. Eh, I’m sure he’ll like whatever you wear. He said he wants to see you. I don’t think your outfit matters all that much.”

Keiji glances over at the clothes on his bed, then back at his laptop screen. He takes a good, deep breath, inhaling for the full four seconds, holding the air in for seven, and breathing out for eight.

He is going on a virtual date with an impossibly attractive man in three hours. Said man can make even his restaurant’s simple, all-black uniform look like one of the outfits he’s seen on one of the fashion department’s models for their annual _Top Trends_ catalogue.

On those long, faraway nights in the past when Keiji was tucked into that little corner in Onigiri Miya’s Shinjuku branch, he’d witnessed Osamu take scorching hot rice into his palms and work them into twenty pieces of onigiri. The sleeves of his shirt were folded thrice outward, and with every new order placed, the ridges outlining the muscles in his arms grew prominent as they flexed under the lamps illuminating the counter front. Keiji remembers the rivers of sweat dripping from Osamu’s jaw; recalls the way his jeans fit tight around his thighs as he bends over to clean up tables.

Keiji is parched.

“Bokuto-san.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m going for the dress shirt.”

A lump builds in Keiji’s throat. Staring back at him on the screen is Miya Osamu’s name.

As the call gets connected, Keiji makes last minute adjustments to his setup. He straightens the placemat under his plate of what he hopes is a passable spaghetti aglio e olio. Cooking wasn’t his forte. Neither were romantic dates; searching for a dish that was equal parts simple and sophisticated had taken an hour out of his grooming routine. Despite the concise, easy-to-follow steps laid out by culinary royalty Ina Garten herself, Keiji’s fingers were accustomed to tapping away at keyboards eight hours a day and rendered incompetent in the face of chopping garlic and parsley.

The collar of his dress shirt is tight around his neck. He undoes the top button and takes the smallest sip of his wine—a 2016 sauvignon blanc he reserved for both celebration (i.e. the successful publication of _Meteo Attack’s_ first volume) and consolation (i.e. the permanent closing of Cafe Bien, the coffee shop a block away). A first date falls somewhere along the spectrum.

The call finally goes through. Keiji’s heart somersaults into his throat.

It dawns on him that he has only ever seen Osamu in two outfits: his Inarizaki uniform from their shared memories of high school volleyball tournaments, and his Onigiri Miya uniform. All-black ensembles are a good look on him. Keiji knows this well.

Yet the only trace of black he finds is Osamu’s hair. He’s styled it in a similar way as Atsumu’s typical hairstyle during games, but parted on the other side.

“Kaashi-kun? Can ya hear me?”

Loud and clear, Keiji means to respond, but he is investing every drop of his energy in keeping his mouth closed at the sight of Osamu in a white dress shirt and grey sweater vest. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and the webcam catches the glint of a silver watch on his wrist. The vest’s neckline plunges deep. The first two buttons of the dress shirt are undone.

Keiji’s hand twitches. Inches a bit closer to his glass of wine.

“Hi.” This dress shirt feels stupidly hot.

“I feel a bit… ridiculous,” Osamu confesses. His hand rubs the back of his neck. “Haven’t dressed up like this in a while.”

“Same here.” Keiji’s fingers find the stem of the glass. Holds them just in case. “That makes two of us, I guess.”

“Yeah, but you look great.” Osamu smiles at him wistfully.

“I didn’t take you to be one for flattery.” It’s a bit ridiculous how Keiji finds this pixelated version of Osamu, contained in a window on his monitor, just as devastatingly handsome as he remembers him to be amidst steaming rice and fluorescent lamps.

“I’m not,” Osamu says. “I’m being honest. Wish I could see you in the flesh.” His smile grows somber. Keiji follows the way Osamu’s eyes stare not into the webcam but on the screen, where he can see Keiji, still very much a living, breathing human, but still just pixels in Osamu’s apartment.

“We’ll see each other soon,” Keiji tells him, a promised laced with a wish. He raises his glass to his webcam. “Alright?”

“If ya say so,” Osamu agrees, holding up his own glass of beer. They clink their glasses against their screens. “I’m still gettin’ used to this kinda setup.”

“It’s the best we can do.” Keiji swirls the wine around inside the glass, letting the oils trace the sides of the bowl and drip into the liquid.

“What are ya havin’ tonight?”

Keiji picks up his plate and angles it towards the camera. “I’d like to put it out there that I don’t cook, and this is the best I could do.”

“I know,” Osamu chuckles. “If ya knew how to cook, you wouldn’t be comin’ to my restaurant all the time.”

“Oh, hush.” Heat surges to Keiji’s cheeks. Osamu is just as lethal as a few sips of wine.

“So ya like pasta.” Osamu leans closer towards his screen, squinting at Keiji’s meal. He is reminded of one of the foreign cooking shows Yukie recommended him last week. The name is forgotten in a haze, but Keiji distinctly notes the word _Hell_ in the title. “Aglio e olio, huh?”

“I guess I do.” Keiji regards his own dish, with the garlic chips sliced too thick and the edges more burnt than blond. “Well, I figured since, um, this was a date, I’d go out of my way to cook something.”

Osamu buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. The sounds are stifled, but Keiji picks up on the snickers from the other side of the line. He sets the plate back down and wrings his hands underneath the table where Osamu can’t see.

“Look, I know it’s barely a decent dish—”

“What?!” Osamu lifts his face from his hands, mirth erased from his expression completely. “No! No, no. I’m not laughin’ at ya. I promise I’m not.”

Keiji clasps his hands together. “Really?”

“No.” Osamu shakes his head rather aggressively; it makes his fringe bounce. “It’s cute. Really, really cute.”

“Oh.” His hands loosen under the table. They settle on his lap. “Cute as in… childlike?”

Again, Keiji is met with protest. “As in, I wish I could have been there to help ya out.” Osamu cranes his neck to get a better look at the dish. “You did great with the parsley, though.”

“Did I?” In spite of his earlier qualms towards the herbs, Keiji smiles down at the chopped up parsley sprinkled over the pasta.

“You really did.”

Osamu goes on to talk about the steak set in front of him, one he basted in butter over the stove before finishing it off in his oven. The process is straightforward, but Osamu narrates the tale of the sirloin steak with all the dramatics involved in a tragedy: The cut of meat, seasoned by Osamu’s capable hands, a slaughtered animal made master to man. Laid to rest in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, skin browning at the edges in a pool of butter and olive oil, with salt and pepper and garlic seeping into its fibers. Banished to the hellfires of an oven set to 220 degrees Celsius. When Osamu says “ _Itadakimasu,”_ Keiji is oddly moved.

The wine undoes the knots in his stomach, sets his tongue loose and his eyelids drooped. Three glasses in, Keiji laughs at everything that comes out of Osamu’s mouth—he’s hilarious, the man. Painfully funny to the point that Keiji remembers just how laughing could hurt so good, with a hand over his stomach and his food almost getting stuck in his throat. Osamu tells the story of the time he tricked Atsumu into thinking he was adopted from the streets.

“I told him, ‘Ya know yer adopted, right?’ He started cryin’. He asked me if I was telling the truth.”

“And? What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Yeah. We picked ya up from the streets cuz ya looked like me.’”

In exchange for every chuckle, Osamu inches closer toward the camera as Keiji recounts plain little anecdotes from his week. Frankly speaking, there isn’t much to his life at the moment: He is doing his best at home until Tokyo enters the final stages of reopening its establishments. Tenma is stuck in Sendai for a documentary shoot behind the development of _Meteo Attack_ ; he did not think to bring any of his supplies, thus forcing Keiji to push back their calendar for the rest of the year. He’s been exploring different restaurants in the comfort of his own apartment, ordering out every Saturday evening and dressing up for the occasion just for a sense of normalcy. Of course, there’s the separate Onigiri Miya deliveries. Osamu knows about them well enough.

“That’s all there is to my life right now.” Keiji dabs at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. He’s cleared his plate. “I haven’t had time to pick up a ‘quarantine hobby’ or whatever it is they’re calling it. I’ve mostly been catching up on my reading list. Otherwise, life’s been pretty boring.”

Osamu chugs the last of his beer. “Nah, don’t sell yerself short like that. And who said ya needed some funky hobby or somethin’?”

Keiji hums. He swirls the last remaining drops of wine inside his glass. “I’ve been trying to tell myself that, but…” He tips the glass towards his mouth. The wine warms his throat on its way down. “Ah, whatever. I don’t want to put a damper on tonight.”

“Hey.” Keiji senses motion on the other end of the line. Osamu has placed the laptop on his lap, and his face is much closer to the webcam now. “Who says we can’t be sad?”

Keiji sets his empty glass down and smiles at Osamu’s face on the screen. “If my knowledge serves me correctly, first dates are supposed to be a bit more light-hearted. You know, since we’re just starting things out.”

“Ya don’t hafta keep things light-hearted with me,” Osamu responds. There are several kilometers stretching between them, and they are connected merely by their screens. Keiji can still feel those big, grey eyes burning into his skin. “With everything happenin’ to the world, the least we can do is hear each other out.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“So what did you mean to say before?” Osamu’s voice softens. His eyes never once break their gaze from Keiji’s.

“I read this article recently. Said what we were feeling while dealing with this whole situation is grief, and we need to give ourselves space and time to mourn all these deaths.” His vision blurs momentarily. It must be the wine. Something stings his eyes, but it’s gone with a blink. “But I don’t know, time’s all messed up and strung together these days. Night turns into day faster than I can finish pouring water over my coffee grinds. I can’t even go a day without getting swamped with emails from work. They’ll say, ‘I hope this email finds you well.’ It doesn’t. It never does. Not in this kind of world right now.”

Keiji can feel his pulse thundering against his veins—thrums in his wrists, pounds in his temples, throws daggers at his chest. He undoes the second button of his shirt. He releases a breath through gritted teeth. Stretches the exhale out for ten seconds. Taps at his warm cheeks with equally tepid hands.

Osamu blinks slowly, mouth parted in what Keiji assumes is a disturbing mix of shock and pity. A laugh leaves Keiji’s lips, but only to break the silence. It rings hollow in his ears.

“Kaashi-kun,” Osamu calls. “Can ya do me a favor?”

“I’ll try.” Keiji massages his temples.

“Okay.” Osamu comes closer towards the camera until his face is nearly all Keiji can see. “Can ya go get some water? Drink a whole glass.”

“‘M not drunk.” Keiji wags a finger at his screen. “Just tipsy.”

“I know, big boy, but ya gotta get some water.” Osamu chuckles. “Please?”

The pleading in Osamu’s tone combined with the puppy dog eyes staring into the barest form of Keiji’s soul have him fetching himself a glass of water. He chugs everything down in front of Osamu.

“Here, Sensei.” Keiji holds up the glass. “All finished.”

Something shines in Osamu’s eyes, and Keiji does his best to make out what it means through the haze of alcohol in his brain. He presumes that seeing a grown man throw a tipsy fit in the middle of a first date must be one of the more entertaining things Osamu has witnessed after staying indoors for over two months. At this moment, Keiji runs a one-man circus. He’s the butt of the joke. A punchline exhausted of its humor after being used thousands of times. The grin on Osamu’s face is only there because he’s a well-mannered fellow with a heart of gold putting up with his antics.

How’d Keiji score a date like this?

“You alright now?” Osamu raises a brow.

“I think.” That’s half a truth. There’s still the buzz humming throughout his body, and the inside of his skull feels like it’s been jammed with handfuls of cotton balls.

“I’m not gonna tell ya any of that ‘stay positive’ bullshit or whatever.” Osamu crosses his arms. “The world sucks right now. None of us were ever taught how to deal with this because… well, we weren’t built for this. People like you and me can only take so much at a time.”

Osamu pauses to take a throw pillow from his couch. Keiji can see the embroidery: Sakura trees in full bloom, with pink thread laced into the white. He hadn’t been able to see them along the streets this year. All he had were photographs and brief glimpses of the flowers lining the sidewalks on his trips to the grocery.

“Take it one day at a time,” Osamu’s voice is barely a whisper. He tucks the throw pillow under his arm. “I promise ya, no one’s expecting you to have everythin’ together right now.” His lips curl into a smile once more. “Definitely not me.”

The water Keiji drank earlier seems to have flushed out some of the wine in his system. Nevertheless, there lingers the heat on his cheeks from earlier. He can’t recall a minute of the date where they didn’t feel this hot to touch.

“Anyway, I think you should go get some rest,” Osamu adds, scratching the back of his head. “Yer probably tired. And it’s almost midnight. I don’t wanna keep ya up all night.”

Oh, Keiji wants him to. He realizes now as the walls of his apartment tilt in his vision. A pack of coffee filters hasn’t been kept away into the cupboard. The TV remote has somehow ended up next to the refrigerator. The door to Keiji’s bedroom is ajar; on the bedside table is an unopened bag of Kappa Ebisen. Not a single corner of this apartment hasn’t been touched by the mess Keiji makes of things.

“I think I ruined the date,” he confesses. He rubs his cheeks with his palms. “This is probably the worst first date you’ve ever had.”

“Quite the contrary, actually,” Osamu says. He hasn’t stopped smiling this entire evening. What did he find so funny about Keiji?

“I’ll believe you for the sake of my sanity.” Keiji waves a hand in the air. “I don’t have the energy to think otherwise.”

“Ya don’t need to, silly. I had a great time with ya.” It’s a good thing Keiji’s sitting down. He feels his knees buckle. “I always have a great time with ya.”

Osamu is carding his fingers through his hair and rolling his sleeves further up his arms. Keiji has never heard Osamu’s voice this low, this soft; it’s always fighting off the chatter of customers during dinner rush. Tonight, it’s just the two of them. It’s quiet. Tugs at his chest with the pull of a lullaby.

“Me too,” Keiji mumbles to himself. Whether he wants Osamu to hear that or not, he’s still unsure.

“Good night, Kaashi.” Osamu waves. “Let me know if yer head hurts in the mornin’.”

“Got any secret recipes to cure hangovers?”

“No recipes,” Osamu admits. There’s a pause that lasts much too long for Keiji’s comfort, but then Osamu continues, “Just gonna kiss it better.”

Keiji starts coughing, much to Osamu’s amusement. “Sure. Okay. Y-Yeah.” He bids him good night and disconnects from the call.

He closes his laptop and stares at the empty plate on his table. Despite sitting incredibly still, the room sways in motion from side to side. Keiji grabs the used fork to pick at a sliver of parsley stuck to his plate.

The taste of garlic and sauvignon blanc have long left the roof of his mouth. Instead, Keiji tastes salt.

**Miya Osamu**

good morning, i hope your head doesn’t hurt too much

eating greasy food won’t actually help

it might make you feel more sluggish

miso soup’s good. or umeboshi

7:42 AM

oh, if you have matcha you can mix it with honey

sorry i keep messaging. just remembered

anyway, i hope you’re ok :)

9:02 AM

**Akaashi Keiji**

Good morning. I just woke up.

I’ll have tea over coffee just for today, haha.

Thanks for looking out for me. :)

11:22 AM

**Miya Osamu**

no problem. happy to keep doing it

11:22 AM

* * *

It was Bokuto who insisted that they have their quarterly briefing at Shibuya. It was a sake bar he had recently been to with his teammates, and he insisted that their selection of drinks were well worth the money they were going to shell out. Keiji made the reservation for a tea room, where they could easily talk about endorsement mishaps and workplace gossip without worrying about strangers eavesdropping on them.

It took them thirty minutes of negotiations to settle on a brand of plum-infused sake to go with the izakaya’s signature hotpot. The drink was deceptively sweet and had Keiji fooled into drinking half the bottle without thinking about the repercussions. Bokuto had only had one cup.

“You’re drinking a lot today, Akaashi,” he mused, scooping out beef and broth from the hotpot into his bowl. “Does Tenma-san have writer’s block again?”

Keiji nodded. “That, and one of the assistants quit, so we’re trying to make things work right now until we find a replacement.”

“I’m sorry.” Bokuto stuffed a large spoonful of broth loaded with mushrooms and beef into his mouth.

Keiji shrugged. “All in a day’s work,” he said. Of course, he could tell Bokuto more about how the assistant filed for resignation on criminally short notice without informing Keiji beforehand, only having sent in a letter to HR. But it wasn’t something he wanted to mull over—not when the flavored sake was warming his body better than all the layers he’d put on for those cold, grey weeks between winter and spring.

Bokuto’s stories were far more animated and interesting than the mundanities of a job in the publishing industry. He mentioned Hinata successfully passing the tryouts and joining their roster. There were also the incessant arguments between Miya Atsumu and Sakusa Kiyoomi at the locker room on Sakusa’s first day of practice; Meian was starting to look into anti-ageing serums after the whole debacle.

“Wasn’t Myaa-tsumu dating Washio-san’s teammate?” Keiji loaded his bowl with more meat.

“No, it was a rumor,” Bokuto replied, grains of rice stuck on the corners of his mouth. “They were teammates in Inarizaki and that was it.” He ate a couple more spoonfuls of rice. “Say, Akaashi, why don’t you date again? It’s been a year, hasn’t it?”

Had it already been a year? “Doesn’t feel like it.” Bokuto poured more sake into Keiji’s cup. “And I don’t have the time. It would be bad for the both of us.”

Keiji met Keiko in an introductory course to comparative literature. She majored in French Lit, Keiji in Japanese. He liked the way she wove his name into “Le pont Mirabeau” with the change in her accent every time she spoke French. She was sweet, like praline macarons shared in the middle of a stroll through the Noguchi garden; sweet like the chocolates she made for him on Valentine’s day during their junior year; sweet like the poems she wrote on the postcards she sent from her semester in Paris; sweet like the perfume she wore the day she told Keiji it was over. They were over.

There were nights when Keiji’s dreams were still pervaded by notes of raspberry and daisy. For a time he’d sworn he could smell her perfume between the pages of his copy of _Le Petit Prince._ It wafted through the Old Keio Gijuku library, where they used to spend hours exchanging books and annotating each other’s reports. The Friday after the breakup, Keiji ordered himself a glass of peach tea at Shiru Cafe; it had completely slipped his mind to get his regular order of iced coffee. He left his invitation to a college reunion unopened and called in busy “from work.”

Under the Rainbow Bridge there flowed the waters of Tokyo Bay. The days went by. Still, Keiji stayed. Frozen.

Bokuto frowned. Keiji poured him his second cup of sake. “How many times do I have to tell you this? It wasn’t completely your fault things ended with Keiko like that.”

“I know.”

“Do you, really?” Bokuto had become considerably better at channeling his moods in more productive means, but he was visibly upset. Keiji’s ears picked up on the snarl in his tone. “You did everything you could to make her happy.”

“She said I wasn’t doing enough.” Keiji scoffed. The plum sake was saccharine, licking up his throat and setting it on a delicious fire. “Was I in the wrong?” Keiji asked her for space. He needed his space. She said he was pushing her away. Working too hard and loving too little.

“Akaashi.” Bokuto placed his hand over Keiji’s across the table. His tone was calmer , yet still stern. “Relationships are about meeting halfway. If she decided one day that she wanted to stop doing that without telling you, it was bound to set you up for failure.”

Keiji placed his other hand on top of Bokuto’s. “But I was giving so little. I was in the wrong, too.”

“People change. Your relationships change because of it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

Ah, there it was. Keiji tasted the sake’s bitter to the plum’s sweet.

“I just couldn’t understand what she wanted. She said I wasn’t showing up for her anymore. She didn’t _feel_ my love anymore. I never knew how to go about it.” Keiji gripped Bokuto’s hand tighter, anchoring himself as the tea room spun on its axis.

Bokuto hummed, brows knitted together. He pursed his lips and the room had gone unsettlingly quiet. Keiji slid his hands off the table.

“It isn’t always going to be easy,” Bokuto said, staring into his bowl of soup. It had turned lukewarm over the course of Keiji’s rant. “Argue all you want with me, Akaashi, but I’m sure relationships shouldn’t be draining. You can only give as much as you can.”

“And if that isn’t enough…?” Keiji took a sip of his soup. It was cold.

Bokuto emptied his bowl. “Then it’s not love.”

* * *

Keiji and Osamu negotiate a weekly video call every Sunday morning. Osamu doesn’t work on orders until Monday, and Keiji’s sleep schedule is more adaptable on the weekends. They set up their laptops by their kitchen counters while preparing breakfast. Osamu demonstrates all of the steps and Keiji follows to the best of his ability. He’s cried over dicing onions and cracked five too many egg yolks in the process, but he gets the hang of it on their fifth call together. Not once does Osamu comment on the burnt edges of Keiji’s tamagoyaki nor his disastrous nanohana salad in mustard dressing (a failed ode to his mother). He just says Keiji can try again next time.

Next time. Osamu’s always gambling on a next time. Always insists on calling Keiji on the days he could spend resting. And on the days between their breakfast calls, he checks in with messages and voice recordings. There are occasional pictures of recipe tests for new onigiri flavors and selfies he takes when he’s clad in full protective gear for deliveries. Even with the mask and face shield obscuring most of his features, he’s still devastatingly handsome. Keiji thanks his stars that those pictures come in small doses.

He doesn’t always get to answer him on time. There are only so many hours in the day, and he spends most of them reviewing Tenma’s plans for upcoming chapters and meetings with the editorial board (which are pointless, really, if they learned to be more concise through email). When he _does_ manage to scrape by and take a break, he opens his message thread with Osamu to be greeted with little updates from his day.

Even with the long hours between their messages, Osamu texts back immediately as soon as Keiji replies. Keiji already knew of how forward Osamu could be when he wanted, but he’d dialled up the notch over the weeks. Today was no different.

**Miya Osamu**

i think we might reopen soon!

10:32 AM

not entirely sure about it yet, i don’t wanna risk it

but they’re easing restrictions and letting us operate

haven’t told the others yet because i’m still in shock

10:45 AM

hope i can see you there soon

11:02 AM

**Akaashi Keiji**

I’m so happy to hear that!

I’ll see if I can come by for takeaway

Don’t think I can go out much, though

12:00 PM

**Miya Osamu**

no pressure :) i know you’re busy

i dunno, i just felt like telling you first

12:00 PM

**Akaashi Keiji**

Thank you for thinking of me :)

12:22 PM

**Miya Osamu**

i do it all the time

12:22 PM

Keiji sets his phone down. He pours himself a glass of water and pops in three ice cubes before taking a sip. He presses the back of his hand to his forehead and finds droplets of sweat on his skin.

Just as Keiji types a reply, a new message from Osamu arrives.

**Miya Osamu**

wow that made me cringe. sorry

hope it didn’t creep you out or anything

12:24 PM

He empties his whole glass.

**Akaashi Keiji**

Don’t worry. It made me smile, actually :)

12:45 PM

And if it makes you feel better

I think of you all the time too

1:34 PM

_Seen_

For the better part of his day, Keiji has been checking his phone. He’s turned off his camera for the two consecutive meetings booked in his schedule. With every hour that passes, he opens his messages, refreshing his inbox for that tiny red bubble on top of the icon. All that greets him on his screen is his message from 1:34 PM and the word _Seen_ in a harrowing grey.

Keiji clenches his jaw as he scrolls through their older messages. The very first message in the thread was sent in May of this year: It was a compliment about Onigiri Miya’s spicy cucumber flavor. Keiji drafted up an elaborate scheme of ordering different onigiri flavors every week; the variety brought with it a fleeting rush of excitement even when he’d been confined to his apartment for three months. That, and the most minuscule ember of hope he’d nursed that Osamu had been running the restaurant’s account.

He shakes his head at the texts from May. Somehow, his fingers still remember the exact way they trembled over the keyboard on his phone after the catastrophic typo he made.

**Akaashi Keiji**

Well, it’s thanks to you for being so generous.

7:35 PM

Onigiri Miya*. Thanks to Onigiri Miya :)

7:36 PM

The volume of messages increased in June, with Osamu practically texting every day. He’s the type to send multiple messages at a time rather than send them in a big bubble of text.

Keiji likes to imagine him at his spot inside the restaurant. It’s the quiet hours he spent dining by the counter he misses the most. Between small talk and bites of onigiri, he would watch Osamu at his station churning out orders for the last wave of customers. He’d salt his rough palms before every onigiri he made. He would then clap twice and scoop out freshly cooked rice from the pot. The onigiri would slowly take shape as Osamu’s hands deftly wrapped the rice in a blanket of nori.

He used to drop by on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Osamu always asked him about work, and Keiji always answered. They often oscillated between conversations that spanned eternities within the restaurant and a comfortable, shared silence at the counter front—Osamu lining up onigiri on a plate and Keiji going through Tenma’s drafts. And on those days when Keiji put his walls up a little higher for the world, Osamu never prodded. Never knocked on the door. Only left three pieces of onigiri (four, on Keiji’s off days that he’d magically sensed) and a warm cup of matcha. He didn’t say a word. He never had to. Just that slice of serenity in the violent rush sweeping through Tokyo was enough.

Yet even those still waters were caught up in the current that tore apart the world as Keiji had known it. If he’s going to make this work—if the two of them are going to make this work—they have to keep moving. If even one of them remained idle for a minute too long or was a couple of steps ahead, it would all go to ruins. The trains would screech against the tracks and leave one of them behind.

The buzz of his phone snaps Keiji out of his reverie.

**Miya Osamu**

sorry, had a loooong call with the accountant

hope i didn’t make you worry

can i call? i wanna see you

9:17 PM

but no pressure of course

9:20 PM

Keiji feels the sting of salt in his eyes and tastes drops of it on his lips. His thumb hovers over the video call button.

“Osamu, hi.” He reminds himself to breathe. His apartment is dim, save for the lamp on his bedside table.

“Kaashi? What’s wrong?” Osamu tilts his head. His face takes up Keiji’s entire screen.

“O-Oh, um,” Keiji stammers, rubbing his temple. “Later. You can go first. Tell me about your day.”

Osamu bites his lip. “Sure thing. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah.”

Osamu talks about the preparations he’s been making for reopening the Shinjuku branch, together with Ayami, his cousin who runs the store in Amagasaki. He mentions Haru, the waitress who often reminded Keiji of their closing hours; she’s volunteered to take on half of the upcoming orders for next week. Eiji, a part-timer, was off-duty for the meantime after news broke out that one of his neighbors tested positive for COVID-19. It was a 92-year-old man with a history of respiratory problems, and their entire street was on high alert.

“Have things been going smoothly?” Keiji tugs his blanket further up to his chest.

“All things considered, yeah, I think so,” Osamu answers, sitting back in his own bed. He holds a Vabo-chan plushie close to his body. Keiji smiles at the sight. “What about you?”

“Me?” Keiji presses his lips together. His eyes wander across the room in thought. From the corner of his vision, he spots the unopened bag of Kappa Ebisen by his closet. When was he going to put that back in the cupboard? “Hm.”

“Hm,” Osamu echoes him.

“I could be better,” Keiji answers. He sinks further into the blanket. The cloth tickles his chin.

“Why do you think so?” Osamu’s grip tightens around Vabo-chan.

“There’s a lot to talk about,” Keiji warns. His fingers ghost over a red button on the screen.

Osamu offers him a tight-lipped smile, one that lifts his cheeks and deepens the creases underneath his eyes. Even with the low lighting on his end, Keiji can tell he’s tired. It would be best if Keiji just ends the call now before—

“I have a lot of time.”

It’s a blatant lie. Keiji doesn’t miss the droop of Osamu’s eyelids nor the drowsy timbre in his voice. But Osamu doesn’t move to end the call and holds Keiji’s gaze through his phone’s front camera.

Keiji opens with one of the more mundane concerns plaguing his mind: “Am I bad at texting?”

“No,” Osamu answers immediately.

“But I take so long to reply,” Keiji counters, his free hand clutching onto his blanket.

Osamu hums aloud. “I don’t text ya to get a reply, Kaashi. I just wanna letcha know about my day, ‘s’all. I know yer busy. And before I had deliveries up and runnin’, I was pretty much down in the dumps and ignorin’ all my messages, too. I won’t hold that against ya.”

Keiji raises his brows. “Really?”

“I’ve got my own thing goin’,” Osamu continues, “and so do you. The fact that you text and call me every day—during these _craaaazy_ times—means yer makin’ time for me.” The wider his smile grows, the more prominent the bags under his eyes become.

Next thing he knows, Keiji’s other hand reaches out to touch his screen. His thumb strokes over the spot where Osamu’s eyebags would be, as though to smooth them over. He chuckles at the gesture.

“What are ya doin’?”

“I wish I could be there for you.” Keiji collapses into his bed, head sinking into his pillow as he lays on his side. Osamu does the same; he pats his pillow down flat on his mattress and throws a blanket over his body. He holds Vabo-chan to his chest.

“You are,” Osamu whispers.

“Not just in the figurative sense,” Keiji says.

Osamu gulps before asking, hesitant, “Like, back at the shop?”

Keiji nods. His glasses are askew when he’s lying down like this. “And, I don’t know. _There._ With you.”

“Me too, darlin’, me too.”

The nickname nearly has every brick of Keiji’s resolve crumbling to the ground. It could be the Kansai drawl or Osamu’s baritone voice dipping further into its lower range, but _darlin’_ sounds different inside his mouth. It sounds right when he says it.

Keiji wants to hear it seared into his flesh with a kiss to the neck; whispered into his hair along with promises of better tomorrows; rousing him from his slumber with arms snug around his waist; over the crackle of frying eggs and bacon and the simmer of miso soup. Darlin’. Darlin’. _Darlin’._

“Do I… Do I text too much?” Osamu lifts his head off of the pillow. The way his voice breaks on the last word mirrors the cracks in the ice sealing off three little words swimming in the deepest recesses of Keiji’s chest.

“No,” Keiji says. His voice bounces off the walls in his room.

“Okay.” Osamu settles back down on his pillow. “Okay.”

He beams at Keiji. The moonlight filters through the little gaps in the blinds draped over Keiji’s windows. He finds he has no need for it anymore.

“Thank you, Osamu,” Keiji says.

“For what?”

“Getting on this train with me.”

“The trains again, huh?” Osamu snickers. “No problem. I’m happy to go with ya. Wherever the train’s headin’ for.”

Spring had long passed beyond the windows of Keiji’s apartment. Falling sakura petals littered the hollow sidewalks of Chiyoda untouched. The world has been sized down to fit into the measly thirty-five square meters of his apartment, yet the living space made to fit his lifestyle to a tee is empty and frigid as the late walks back from the office on those long, winter nights in January.

“Good night, darlin’.”

July is blistering, incandescent—the thawing of a heart frozen solid.

* * *

Keiji shivered upon stepping out of Onigiri Miya. He was greeted by the bustling alleyway and a howling gust of wind that nipped at his ears. Even during the late hours of the evening, Shinjuku Central Park and the establishments that skirted around it were crowded with locals and tourists alike. The rustle of red and orange leaves underneath the soles of his boots, together with the crisp night air that tickled Keiji’s nose, told him that winter had settled over the city early that year.

He felt the weight of the box in his right hand. Inside were two pieces of tamago onigiri Miya Osamu had prepared for him on a whim.

The sign on Onigiri Miya’s door read ‘ _CLOSED’._ He could see Osamu helping one of the staff—Haru-chan, he’d called her—carry the remaining dishes over to the dirty kitchen deep inside of the restaurant.

That was the ninth time he’d dropped by the restaurant. A year ago, the Tokyo branch had simply been the subject of hushed small talk amidst the bursts of noise inside Kamei Arena Sendai. Keiji had no way of ascertaining back then that Osamu’s light-hearted responses would come into fruition. Seeing the announcement of a Shinjuku branch opening plastered all over his friends’ social media also didn’t quite do the trick to convince him.

He’d carved out a small opening in his schedule one Tuesday evening; he’d clocked out earlier than Tenma for once and made the seven-minute walk to Jimbocho Station. From there, he rode through five stops via the Shinjuku line before arriving at Shinjuku Station.

The quaint restaurant had been difficult to find, situated in the narrower streets a few blocks away from Shinjuku Central Park. After walking past dessert stands, specialty restaurants, and flashy neighboring izakayas, he’d finally found the familiar navy banner bearing the calligraphy strokes that read _Onigiri Miya._

During the first eight visits, he’d sat on the same spot, hunched over his reading tablet and finishing up his usual order of umeboshi onigiri. He’d let his gaze roam around the restaurant, searching through the uniformed staff for grey eyes and strands of black hair tamed by an embroidered Onigiri Miya cap. He’d taken the same subway line back to Chiyoda, hunger sated. Still, he couldn’t help but continue his search.

Keiji peered through the windows and watched Osamu stretch his arms overhead. He yawned into his palm and took his cap off. His black locks spilled over his head; his natural color suited him much better than the silver he donned in high school.

That night, he’d found it. He’d found him.

The box of tamago onigiri was still warm in Keiji’s hands. He kept it close as he ducked into the evening rush at Shinjuku Station. Held it on top of his lap as he passed through the same stops on the way back to Jimbocho Station. Shielded it from the winds that bellowed past the skyscrapers of Chiyoda at eleven, preserving the warmth by tucking it under his coat all the way until he made it into his apartment building’s lobby, where the heater was on full blast.

The route from Weekly Shonen Vai’s office to Onigiri Miya took him thirty minutes on average, but with the number of trips he had taken, each visit began to feel shorter. Quicker. Waiting at the end of five stops were calloused palms closed around a freshly steeped cup of matcha and handing a plate of steaming hot onigiri. Amidst the neon signs that glowed bright in the dark of the night, all Keiji saw beneath the Shinjuku streetlights were navy blue; grey eyes reflected in the windows of the shop; the ghost of a chuckle echoing above the wail of a train speeding down the tracks; an empty box wiped down, hidden in the farthest part of the cupboards, behind ornate glasses and bowls.

 _Slow down._ Keiji scrolled through Miya Osamu’s profile as he lay in bed, thumb rapidly scoring through hundreds of old posts dating back to five years ago.

 _Slow down._ One of the more recent posts featured a photo of Osamu standing by Onigiri Miya’s storefront in Shinjuku with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were closed as he beamed at the camera—the broadest smile Keiji had seen him wear. Surrounding him was the colorful array of signs from other establishments along the street. That spot, though—squeezed between an izakaya and a frozen yogurt shop—belonged to Osamu.

And inside that restaurant, on the chair by the very end of the counter front, right by the wall, was Keiji’s.

 _Slow down._ The ground quaked. Threatening to break through were three words he’d long forgotten the meaning of. Three words foreign to his own mouth. Three words he wanted to see in the shape of somebody else’s.

He’ll take his time. He’ll get it right.

* * *

To say Keiji was working from home implied he had a choice in the matter.

Since the government declared a state of emergency, he hadn’t stepped foot outside his apartment, save for the quick weekly trips he took to the grocery store and the nearby konbini. He took his glasses off in between video conferences to rub the glare of his laptop out of his eyes. One Wednesday morning, he woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming of being summoned to an online meeting while he was sitting on his toilet.

He sent Tenma a message every hour or so, mostly to remind him to get up and stretch; at the office, Keiji would get up from his cubicle and refill his souvenir mug from Rome with the cold water from the break room’s dispenser. The short walks back and forth gave Keiji room to mill about whenever he’d get restless at his desk. His apartment didn’t offer the same benefits, but he made roundtrips in the living space and kitchen nonetheless. The three meals he ate a day were broken up into snack breaks scattered across his schedule. The old Fukurodani jersey that was loose around his torso grew snug around his shoulders and stomach.

Regular office hours were 9 AM to 6 PM, but there were always five-minute delays to their meetings that had them extending calls beyond 7 PM. Tenma had no concept of time, though, so even as the rest of the team retired for the night, his messages would come in right as Keiji’s back landed on his mattress.

He wasn’t working from home. He was at home and being forced to work. Semantics and whatnot.

Even with the eight straight hours he spent bathed in the blue light of his laptop screen, it had become a habit to flit through social media during his work-mandated lunch break. Konoha’s Instagram posts were impassioned rants about the ongoing race to find the Great Coronavirus Cure. Komi was out of commission, with all of his shoots temporarily halted until the state of emergency was lifted. Sarukui, Yukie, and Kaori were caught in the same woes as Keiji with work-from-home-but-not-really setups. Washio and Bokuto made do with the limited spaces and equipment in their apartments for their conditioning exercises.

Keiji checked the calendar on his phone. March 31, 2020. A Tuesday.

@onigirimiya just made a new post.

Liked by **bokutobeam920** and **78,990 others**

 **onigirimiya** It is with a heavy heart that we announce the temporary closing of Onigiri Miya’s Shinjuku and Amagasaki branches. Remember to #StayHome and be healthy.

We’ll see you all again soon!

 **bokutobeam920** NOOOOOOOOOO

 **ninjashoyo** WHAT :(

 **akaaaaaaaagi** I’m so sad

 **shinsuke** Very sorry to hear this.

 **msbyluvr** wtf i hate it here im disbanding coronavirus

 **schweiden20** fuck covid19 all my homies hate covid19

 **goingonaran** Wishing you all the best.

_Load more comments_

Keiji’s thumbs punched in Osamu’s username into the Instagram search bar and hovered over the _Message_ button. He gnawed on his lower lip and stared at the profile for what seemed like eons condensed into under thirty seconds.

He went back to the Onigiri Miya profile.

**akaashi_keiji** I’ll miss you, Onigiri Miya. Till next time.

“Fuck.”

It took a few more seconds for the comment to finish posting, but it was out there, under a long thread of comments lamenting the closing of their favorite onigiri shop. There were thousands. If he’d wanted it to reach Osamu, he should have just sent a message.

No. That was asking for too much.

Keiji turned off his phone and kept it away in his closet. He placed it behind the pile of unused cardigans and turtlenecks he reserved for the spring. He shut the door to his room and returned to his makeshift desk, just in time for a short call with Tenma after lunch.

He had better things to do. So did Osamu. The comment would find its way to him somehow.

* * *

Liked by **samumiya** and **231,468 others**

 **onigirimiya** We’re back!

Onigiri Miya will resume operations in Shinjuku and Amagasaki next Monday! We’re open for dine-in, takeaway, and delivery from 11 AM to 6 PM on the weekdays.* Note that customers may only dine in for 1 hour at most. Rest assured, we’ve made the necessary changes to make sure our staff and customers stay safe while still enjoying our products.

Have some of our bestsellers or try out some of our newest flavors #MadeByMiya! See you there!

*We reserve the right to deny entry to customers who are not wearing masks nor the protective gear prescribed by the Ministry of Health.

 **kageyamatobio** Happy I’m in Japan for this

 **HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL** ALL I DO IS WIN

 **miyatsumu** @sakusa_kiyoomi @bokutobeam920 @ninjashoyo let’s go after training? :D

 **miyatsumu** @goingonaran ryujin nippon team lunch pls

 **goingonaran** @miyatsumu There’s too much of us to fit!!! We have to be socially distanced!!!

 **wakatoshi_1994** @miyatsumu @goingonaran I agree. We can send Hoshiumi for takeout.

 **HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL** @wakatoshi_1994 I’M NOT YOUR ERRAND BOY BUT YOU’RE LUCKY I MISSED YOU

 **goingonaran** @wakatoshi_1994 @HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL Please use your DMs. Please

 **msbyluvr** HEAD IN HANDS RN

 **schweiden20** UR KIDDINGDIJGDJG

_Load more comments_

A survey conducted by the University of Tsukuba indicates that 80% of its respondents felt coronavirus-related stress; 38.3 percent felt “very much” stressed, and 41.8 percent only “somewhat” felt the stress.

Keiji has never been a believer in numbers. Systems of measurement, presumed to be objective, are entirely derived from mankind’s understanding of the world around them. It makes sense because they want it to. The same goes for words: Language is merely a vessel for every experience and sensation that their puny, mortal bodies can comprehend.

Someone’s “very much” is someone’s “not at all.” Someone’s “somehwat” is somebody else’s “very much.” This doesn’t begin to cover every individual person’s ability to process their grief: Before Keiji knew he was in mourning, he’d gained two kilos and zoned out in between meetings. If he’d been asked to fill out a survey to assess his coronavirus-related stress levels, he’s certain he would have answered that he was “not at all stressed.”

Even as he enters his sixth month of working at home—curled up on his couch in a dress shirt and sweatpants, nibbling on his second pack of Kappa Ebisen—he is more likely to say he is feeling “somewhat” anxious about Japan sinking into recession and the Prime Minister’s resignation.

Onigiri Miya is back in business. Osamu’s texts come less frequently throughout the day. Keiji’s memos pile up with drafts of text messages to send; they all start with _‘How are you?’_ and end with _‘I miss you.’_ He’s seen them twice. Osamu never has.

He watches Osamu’s life in pictures and videos on the restaurant’s Instagram. Regulars post photos of Onigiri Miya’s unforgettable storefront, with its name in calligraphy brush strokes bright against the navy blue banner. They indulge in their favorite flavors and try out the newer additions to the menu; kimchi fried rice easily becomes another one of their bestsellers, joining the ranks of umeboshi, spicy cucumber, and minced tuna with spring onion. Hoshiumi Korai goes as far as hosting a livestream on his Instagram to show Osamu working on the national team’s orders.

Albeit permitted to operate until the usual 10 PM closing time, Osamu closes the restaurant at 6 PM and spends at least two hours disinfecting the establishment with his staff. On the nights Keiji called, Osamu slipped into slumber over the phone, and Keiji would only realize halfway through, when Osamu’s snores were all he could hear through the line. All Keiji could do was end the call and send him a text message for him to open the next day, hoping it wouldn’t get lost in the haze of Osamu’s early morning rituals.

Keiji’s “somewhat” is Osamu’s “not at all.” This is something he learns through blurry pictures he receives at 7 AM of Osamu heading to the store for his morning round of cleaning; his theory proves to be true when he spots a Salonpas peeking out from under the neckline of Osamu’s shirt. While Keiji rummages through the food stacked in his fridge, Osamu is practically risking his life for his livelihood—for the plenty others who eat his food for pleasure. For nourishment. For happiness. Not once has Osamu ever complained.

He opens his memos again.

2020/9/1 11:42 AM

Hi, Osamu. Just checking in. Hope you’re alright :)

2020/9/2 2:23 PM

I know you wouldn’t forget to eat, but I just want to make sure you had lunch.

I’m happy you’re back in business.

2020/9/3 1:38 AM

I miss you

I miss your voice

I miss our breakfast calls

Is that selfish of me?

2020/9/5 8:09 AM

Good morning. I had a dream about you last night.

He grimaces and deletes the memo from September 5.

There are a few more memos from last week that he has no memory of writing. His palate does, however, vaguely recall the taste of Yakult-flavored chuhai. That is as much an explanation as he can provide for himself.

Keiji opens his Line app. His palms break out in a sweat, his phone slipping from his grasp as he types a new message for Osamu. He goes over the text four times; he’s an editor, for God’s sake. He fashions a story out of words for a living. A check-in message shouldn’t be more daunting than a five-chapter volume; and yet, he would much rather bury himself in a pile of Tenma’s first drafts than engage in a staring contest with Osamu’s contact information.

**Akaashi Keiji**

Hi :) Are you on the way home?

8:19 PM

He heaves a sigh and exits their chatroom, fingers punching in Bokuto’s number in the keypad.

“Bokuto-san.”

“Akaashi? Are you okay? You’re heaving!” Keiji hears a disco pop song blaring in the background through what he assumes are the Bluetooth speakers Bokuto received from an endorsement deal.

“Um.” Keiji ruffles his hair—a disastrous mop in black. “No.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” Bokuto prods, turning down the speaker volume. “Go ahead.”

“I texted Osamu first.”

“Oh? You never text anyone first! That’s huge!”

“I know,” Keiji groans.

“What did you text him?”

“I asked him if he was on the way home already,” Keiji answers. “Onigiri Miya closes at six. They spend two hours disinfecting the restaurant, so that means they finish by eight.”

He can practically hear Bokuto’s eyelids fluttering in thought. “And?”

“Will he think it’s creepy?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Bokuto assures him.

“What if I’m overbearing?” He twirls a strand of hair around his finger.

“Caring,” Bokuto says, as if to correct him. “You’re showing him you _care,_ Akaashi!”

Keiji bites his lip. “It’s not asking for too much?”

“I think you’re the last person I’d say was asking for too much.” Bokuto hums along to the rhythm of the song. “I think he would appreciate knowing you think about him often.”

“I do think about him.” Keiji plops down on his couch and leans into the back pillows. “I… I saw him in my dreams.”

“What were you doing in the dream?”

A lump forms in Keiji’s throat. He swallows it down. “Things.”

Bokuto whistles. “Okay, okay, I won’t pry! I promise.” His cackle comes softer through the speakers. Keiji’s entire face heats up.

“I just want to see him more, that’s all,” Keiji confesses out loud. The thought has been simmering in his mind for days—six months, if he’s going to be honest with himself for once—but only now has he let the water boil over and blow the pot lids off.

“And you’re scared of letting him know because you think it’s putting pressure on him?”

“Yes.” Keiji places a hand to his chest. His heart stutters against his palm. Leave it to Bokuto to breathe life into the thoughts he buries twenty feet under his conscience. “Yes.”

The doorbell rings. Keiji nestles his phone between his cheek and shoulder as he scrambles for the box of masks on the coffee table. He juggles tucking the loops around his ears and listening to Bokuto sing to the same disco pop song he’d been listening to since the call began.

Once Keiji opens his apartment door, a paper bag awaits by his feet.

“Akaashi? What’s up?”

“Strange,” Keiji murmurs. “There’s a package for me but I don’t remember ordering anything online.”

“Are you sure you didn’t buy another sweatshirt?”

“Positive.”

Then, a few steps to Keiji’s left: A pair of worn-out Adidas Gazelle sneakers. Black. Jeans tucked above the ankles. Long-sleeved shirt with a little onigiri printed right by the chest. Black. Grey eyes in the shadows cast by a cap. Black.

“Bokuto-san, I’ll call you back.”

“What? Akaashi—?!”

Keiji pockets his phone.

“Hey, Kaashi.”

He hears his name clearly, without the static and crackle over the phone. Even with the face shield and mask concealing the lower half of his face, Keiji sees Osamu standing outside his apartment, eyes crinkled in a smile. Not made of pixels. Not contained inside the borders of a window on his laptop. Not trapped within the confines of his phone screen. He’s flesh and bone and real.

“Osamu,” Keiji exhales his name out. His breath makes the mask flutter against his face. His feet almost drag him out of the genkan. “W-What brings you here?”

“I dropped off a package.” Osamu gestures to the paper bag by Keiji’s feet. He remembers to pick it up. “And I wanted to see ya.”

Keiji thinks back to the message he sent at 8:19 PM, then stares at Osamu’s figure by the wall.

“Did you see my text?”

“Yeah, about that.” Osamu rubs the back of his neck. “I saw the notification on my phone, but I was already in the lobby. I didn’t wanna ruin the surprise.”

Keiji’s lower lip trembles. He peeks into the package. Inside, he finds a sleek, black bento box with bright red lining along the seams, cushioned by what seems to be black fabric. There is a note stuck to the bento box. The characters are evenly spaced apart, each stroke written with an expert drag and lift.

_I’m always thinking of you. - Osamu_

Osamu clears his throat. Keiji turns his head and holds Osamu’s gaze—properly this time.

Language is merely a vessel.

“I miss you, Osamu.” Keiji wraps his arms around the paper bag. His mind springs into a downward spiral thinking about changing into new clothes and spraying the package with alcohol. Such thoughts are shelved; in this moment, he is cradling this paper bag in his arms.

“I miss you too _._ ”

Keiji can’t fully see Osamu’s face because of his mask, but the look in his eyes is one he knows all too well: He’s seen it on Sunday mornings, when Keiji mistakes his nonstick pans for his mother’s old cast iron skillet. It’s the same eyes reflected in Onigiri Miya’s store windows. They whisper stories of train rides yet to happen—of promises to be kept far from the fickle seasons and inside warm bento boxes.

“Thank you.” His phone buzzes in his pocket. He foresees the incessant Zoom invitations from his old teammates waiting for him on his laptop. “Text me when you get home.”

“I will, darlin’.” Osamu’s lips curl into a lopsided grin. “Let me know whatcha think of the food.”

Maybe it’s best if Osamu walks away now. That way, Keiji can close his apartment door and slide down the frame in peace, turning over a vinyl record of Osamu’s _darlin’_ inside his head until it haunts his dreams.

“I’m sure I’ll enjoy it,” Keiji assures him.

“I made sure ya would,” Osamu laughs, eyeing Keiji from head to toe. “Yer… really cute by the way. With the dress shirt and the sweatpants.”

Heat rushes through Keiji’s body as he glances down at his outfit. He finds multiple creases on his dress shirt and a dried out grain of rice which he likely failed to pick out after lunch. There Osamu stands, fully dressed in his Onigiri Miya uniform, juxtaposed against Keiji’s lousy French tuck and Adidas slides.

“I’m starting to question what your standard for ‘cute’ is, but thank you.” Wow. Keiji got that out without stuttering _once._ Five gold stars. Ten’s across the board. Here’s a Nobel Prize for Not Fucking Shit Up.

Osamu folds his arms over his chest. “Don’t have a standard. It’s just you.”

Hold the Nobel Prize. “G-Go home, Osamu. It’s getting late.”

“Okay, okay, I will.” Osamu holds his palms up in surrender and turns around, heading for the elevator. “Good night, Kaashi.”

“Good night,” Keiji says back.

Somewhere, in a universe billions of lightyears away from theirs where godforsaken, life-threatening viruses don’t exist, he seals the message with a kiss. He watches Osamu wave over his shoulder and disappear into the hall. The _ding_ of the elevator, with the wheeze of its doors closing, are Keiji’s cues to go back inside his apartment.

His fingers are careful when they take the bento out of the paper bag. He wets a paper towel with alcohol and dabs at the exterior before lifting the lid to expose its contents.

The two large rectangular compartments in the top row are filled with the entrees. To the left are three perfectly lined pieces of onigiri; the rice is speckled with diced greens and garnished with shiitake mushrooms coated in oil. On the right, Keiji counts four pieces of gyoza, half-steamed and half-fried. The bottom row is split into three smaller compartments, each containing umeboshi, tamagoyaki, and three persimmon slices.

When Keiji bites into the onigiri, the taste of nanohana in mustard dressing combines with the savory flavors of the shiitake mushroom glazed in sesame oil. His eyes widen in an exhilarating mix of surprise and delight, the familiar, earthy flavors of his favorite dish filling his stomach.

He doesn’t remember tasting this onigiri flavor off the menu, and neither does he remember seeing it in Onigiri Miya’s announcements for reopening. Osamu walked him through preparing a nanohana salad during one of their breakfast calls, and Keiji may have let it slip that it was his mother’s signature dish, but otherwise—

Oh.

Keiji sets the onigiri down. He’s bitten into the rice and revealed the fillings inside: More mushrooms and nanohana coated in a mix of sesame oil and mustard dressing which Osamu must have prepared by hand. The pop of colors from the food provide the perfect contrast to the black bento. In particular, Keiji’s eyes drink in the perfectly golden layers of the tamagoyaki and the vibrant orange of the persimmons.

He wipes his hands down with a tissue and reaches into the paper bag. His hand closes around a soft, cotton cloth. He unfurls the fabric on the vacant space on his desk.

Once he smooths out a pair of creased sleeves, it becomes clear to Keiji that this is no plain black cloth. His fingers trace a small onigiri icon printed on the shirt, right where it would fit over his chest.

“You,” he breathes out, voice shaking. He looks back and forth from the bento, and the shirt, and the bento, and the shirt. “You…”

Words fail.

Keiji knew from a young age that the things he said would only go as far as he could in putting his feelings into words. He has dedicated four years of his life studying the greatest writers in Japanese history—buried his nose in collections and anthologies and broken down sentences into words, words into characters, characters into strokes. Yet even with supposedly all those poems and novels and essays at his disposal—those that were proclaimed to encapsulate the beauty and horror of humanity—the more lost he’d found himself in a maze of language and meaning.

_What did it mean to be human? What did it mean to feel?_

_What did it mean to love?_

Keiji sits back down on his chair. Rubs alcohol into his palms and fingers. Holds onigiri in his two hands, perched like the sky steady on the hilltops.

He takes a bite.

Liked by **kodzuken** and **62 others**

 **akaashi_keiji** #MadeByMiya

 **bokutobeam920** WHY DO YOU GET FREE MERCH

 **kroo1117** (─‿‿─)

 **kodzuken** do you have miya osamu’s business card

 **badgalkaoriri** cute shirt!

 **konohakinori** akaashi open the zoom link

 **konohakinori** akaashi. open the zoom link right now

 **konohakinori** AKAASHI

 **washio_tatsuki** Akaashi, Konoha told me to tell you to open the Zoom link

 **yukieppe** EXPLAIN

_Load more comments_

* * *

**Miya Atsumu**

hi akaashi-kun :D i’ve been told to contact u :D

9:02 AM

**Akaashi Keiji**

Hello, Atsumu. Can you help me with something?

Several things, actually. Haha.

9:02 AM

Liked by **akaashi_keiji** and **254,836 others**

 **onigirimiya** Our Shinjuku branch turns 1 year old today! Enjoy 1 extra onigiri for every 3 pieces you purchase, all on us.

Times have changed, but we are so grateful that your support for Onigiri Miya has stayed the same. Cheers to a year in Tokyo, and for many, many more! #MadeByMiya

 **HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL** HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHINJUKU BRANCH. AND MIYA OSAMU

 **miyatsumu** @HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL it’s my birthday greet me too >:(

 **HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL** @miyatsumu FINE CHECK YOUR DMS I GUESS…

 **wakatoshi_1994** Happy 1st birthday.

 **ninjashoyo** HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 **shinsuke** You make me proud, Osamu.

 **akaaaaaaaagi** YEAH!!!!

 **msbyluvr** omg omg happy 1 year anniversary!!!!!!!

 **schweiden20** manifesting onigiri miya world domination

_Load more comments_

There are many things to fear in a world like this: Becoming a statistic; morphing from human to a casualty in the split second it takes for a virus to completely rid his body of life; falling asleep next to the monster from his nightmares that whispers dreadful nothings into his ears; waking up to a call from home about an aged relative from Okinawa; messages from his older sister who clocks in and out of her university hospital and refuses to go off duty; stepping out into the city after six months of isolation to find that all of its grime and dirt and smoke and beautiful are no longer what Keiji remembers them to be.

Platform 1 at Jimbocho Station was once painted in the schemes of office workers’ clothes and solid-colored coats in the fall. Keiji used to squeeze through the crowds descending the stairs at this hour and dash into the train before its doors shut on him. Today, there are no suitcases pushed against his back; no insistent heels tap, tap, tapping on the platform tiles; no drawn-out groan from a high school student commuting to cram school.

Keiji’s memories of Platform 1 are paralyzed in his past. It is a gentle reminder he mumbles to himself when he boards the train heading for Shinjuku Station and sits six feet away from another passenger. He sits on the edge of his seat, careful not to lean too much into the backrest. The train lurches forward to depart, and as his body jerks to the side, his shoulder meets air—not an arm nor a shoulder.

His arms tighten their grip around a large, white cardboard box. He spent the first few hours of the afternoon securing the flaps and undoing them again and again until he was certain they would hold through a thirty-minute commute. The train handles suspended above him swing in a reckless tempo. The many hands that used to steady them through routine trips are tucked into pockets instead. The glint of the steel handpoles is brilliant under the lights, without a single fingerprint chipping away at its luster.

Autumn isn’t much for Keiji. He welcomes the blowing breeze that blankets Tokyo after the sweltering summer afternoons and torrential downpours over the city. At this time of the year, tourists flocked to Shinjuku Central Park for the perfect caricature of the season: Ginkgo trees arched over the pathways as a makeshift golden sky while its leaves pirouetted down onto the asphalt. He’d been asked twice before to take pictures of couples and families by the foliage, and he’d happily obliged. They would squeeze together to fit into the frame. Keiji would count down from three to one. The temperature would plummet down in the evenings, and he’d feel a little numb in his fingertips, but it was still warm.

The numbness spreads throughout the park. In the distance, he sees a few figures moving between the trees. A man stands in front of one of the ginkgo trees with his hands intertwined behind his back as he peers up at the leaves. Keiji realizes the width of the roads paved down the park without the food trucks and street vendors lining them.

The man by the trees shakes his head and goes on his way.

Restaurant signages illuminate the street corners Keiji passes through, though he sees only a number of faces fading in and out of sight. The tables in the Doutor Coffee Shop that houses Waseda students during the peak of exam season are void of opened textbooks and laptops. The cakes on display remain whole. The cashier on duty yawns and fogs up her mouth shield.

Keiji makes another turn and recognizes the flash and fanfare of the izakaya neighboring Onigiri Miya. The chefs at the counter are idle by their stations. Patrons occupy the tables and seats at the counter, leaving one chair between them unoccupied. The frozen yogurt shop nearby stands captive to the dark of the night, a sign taped to the door glowing under the streetlight: _‘FroYo Zone will permanently close. Thank you for your support all these years.’_

“FroYo Zone closed down, huh.” Keiji hears a man sigh as the doors to Onigiri Miya slide open. A couple walks side by side as they exit the restaurant with paper bags swinging at their sides.

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss their matcha swirl,” muses the woman, eyeing the note posted to the door. “It’s a good thing Onigiri Miya made it to a year.”

“I’d be really upset if they had to close down.” The man peaks into his paper bag. “Some of the best onigiri I’ve had. And Miya-san’s a great guy.”

“He is.”

They leave a space between the two of them as they take a turn and disappear from Keiji’s view. He tilts his head upward, traces the calligraphy printed into the shop’s navy blue banner hanging overhead. Inside, Osamu is stretching his arms and rotating his shoulders. Snapping his neck from side to side. Puffing his cheeks, releasing a breath. His lower lip juts out in a pout. The box in Keiji’s hand bears the weight of the sky.

**Akaashi Keiji**

Hi, Eiji. I’m outside.

6:01 PM

**Nakamoto Eiji**

Got it, Akaashi-san!

Gonna force the Boss Man to take a seat

6:01 PM

Ok we’re good Haru-chan got him to relax

You can come in now :D

6:05 PM

Keiji stomps on the mat in front of the door, rubbing off the dirt in his soles. The smell of salmon and steamed rice waft through the air as he steps into the restaurant. His body eases into the sound of American jazz humming through the speakers.

Eiji flashes him a shit-eating grin and two thumbs-up by the entrance. Haru chimes in with a lively _“Irasshaimase!”_ from the counter.

“Huh, didn’t we just close?” Osamu squints at Haru from his seat at the counter. He takes a sip from his glass of water. “Eiji-kun, ya made sure ta flip the sign right?”

“I did,” Eiji answers, leading Keiji closer to the counter.

“Then who the hell is—wha—” Osamu whips his head around and sees Keiji near the entrance. His jaw hangs open. His mouth shield fogs up.

“Happy birthday, Osamu.” He feebly holds up the box in front of him. There are thousands of questions swimming in Osamu’s eyes as his gaze flits from the box to Keiji’s face.

Onigiri Miya is a well-lit space. The roses in his cheeks are in full bloom beneath the lamps.

“Kaashi…” Osamu blinks at him, dumbfounded. He removes his cap and runs his gloved hand through his hair. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

Keiji chuckles. “The tables have turned, then.”

“Come sit,” Osamu says.

Keiji sets the box down on the counter and takes his place at his usual chair near the wall, leaving the chair between him and Osamu vacant. Osamu pushes the bottle of hand sanitizer towards Keiji with his elbow. As if on cue, Haru and Eiji retreat into the dirty kitchen.

They sit in silence as Keiji rubs the sanitizer into his palms and the gaps between his fingers. He feels Osamu watching his movements, head propped up against his palm.

“Enjoying the view?” Keiji kids, fixating on his knuckles.

“If anythin’, I can’t believe ya came over. It’s been months since I saw ya here.” Osamu removes the gloves from his hands. He presses down on the pump with the inside of his wrist and mirrors Keiji.

“I figured if I wanted to come over, it’d be after hours,” Keiji explains. “Less people.” He finally works up the courage to look at Osamu to his right. When he’s this near, those big grey eyes are made of steel. They cut deep through ice.

“It’s not the same when yer not here.”

 _Slow down._ The steel slashes through. “A lot of things have changed in Shinjuku, yes.”

“I don’t let anybody else sit there,” Osamu confesses. “I mark it off in the mornin’. Tell people we have to space everyone out. But I keep that seat for ya.”

Keiji studies the picture frames hung up on the walls of the restaurant. He sees the faces of the old friends they’d made from playing volleyball in high school: The Inarizaki Boys’ Volleyball Club, squeezed together at the storefront, wide smiles and starry eyes; a team photo of the Black Jackals stationed at the counter, gold medals slung around their necks after winning the season last year; Tenma with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, handing a signed copy of _Meteo Attack_ Volume 5 to Osamu; the twins, beaming at the camera, faces stretched exactly the same way as they hold up Atsumu’s Ryujin Nippon jersey.

There is another photo he spots, but it’s one he’s failed to notice during his previous meals at the restaurant. It’s much smaller compared to the other pictures. A single figure takes up the frame, glasses sliding off the bridge of its nose.

“Is that me?” Keiji points to the picture.

“It’s been there since February, silly,” Osamu laughs.

Keiji glances back at the photo. “Why me?”

“Why not?” Osamu quirks up a brow.

“No, really.” Keiji regards the box on the counter. The lid’s flaps begin to come undone at the sides. “Why me?”

Osamu presses his lips together. The song drifting from the speakers decrescendos into silence and melts into the next one. The splash of a cymbal underscores the piano riffs that fill the room. Chet Baker’s voice reverberates in the restaurant, falling through the cracks in Keiji’s chest.

“Do you remember when we were in Sendai?” Osamu clasps his hands together. “You asked about us opening a branch in Tokyo.”

He nods. Keiji has never forgotten. He dog-ears the pages of that day and returns to them on the nights when his mattress is bedrock.

“I didn’t think much about it before you asked, if I’m bein’ honest. I was only gettin’ the hang of runnin’ the shop back in Hyogo, and I dunno…” He stares at the blisters on his palms. “Back then I didn’t think I could do it—run a restaurant and keep it alive, that is.”

The image of FroYo Zone’s note stuck to their door is tattooed to the forefront of Keiji’s memories.

“Hell, I didn’t even know if people would come. It’s just onigiri. There’s lotsa food you can find in Tokyo. But you walked up ta me, asked me about a Tokyo branch. I toldja I was thinkin’ about it, right?” Keiji nods. “I wasn’t. Maybe I’d thought of it like a pipe dream, sure, but I didn’t seriously start looking for rental spaces till you asked.”

“Oh,” is all Keiji can say.

“I didn’t open this for ya, don’t gloat or anythin’, now,” Osamu teases. His laughter mellows down into the curl of his lips. “But it was a push. And now I’m here.” He scans the restaurant, the grin on his face growing wider as he takes in the empty chairs and tables; the station behind the counter, with its faucets and toppings and kitchenware; the photographs on the wall; Keiji. “Made it to a year.”

 _Slow down._ Fire ripples through Keiji’s chest, gnaws away at the glaciers surrounding him. From water they were created, and to water they return—a bottomless ocean dyed navy blue.

“I never got to thank you for that,” Osamu adds.

“You give me way too much credit,” Keiji says, aiming to tease, but his voice lacks the punch. The bite. It slips out of his mouth in a quiet sigh and an admission of all the thoughts and monsters he’d locked away in a box of his own making.

Osamu drums his fingers on the counter’s surface. “That’s because you deserve more credit than ya think ya do.” He pulls the box closer to him. “Ya dropped by Tuesdays and Thursdays and ordered from us every week. That’s how many yen, now? And ya came all the way here to bring me this, too.”

“It’s not much,” he says. An attempt to break through the surface. But the ocean is hungry. The ocean consumes. The ocean pulls him down, down, down.

Osamu lifts the lid from the box. Keiji cranes his neck to take a look inside, even when he’s been staring at its contents the entire afternoon while getting ready to make the trip to Shinjuku.

The cake is the same as he remembers it: Round and fluffy, bouncing even with a little tip of the box. Powdered sugar coats the surface. The sides are perfectly blond. Quartered strawberries line the bottom of the cake.

“Ya made this?” Osamu stares in disbelief.

“N-Not on my own.” Keiji picks at his thumbs under the counter. “Atsumu walked me through it.”

Osamu takes the cake out of the box, fingers cautious in handling the cardboard plate supporting its weight. It bobs when he sets it down, and he smiles in amusement at the sight.

“Ya nailed it, Kaashi!” He exclaims, eyes alight with a childlike wonder Keiji wishes to conceal from the cruel hands of time.

“I just used a rice cooker,” he confesses. “And that was the third attempt.”

Osamu moves the plate slightly once more. The cake bounces again. He bends over, hands over his stomach while his shoulders shake. It’s infectious, the sound of him—a euphoric whirring through Keiji’s body akin to the pull of half a bottle of plum sake.

“That’s already a big step for ya, then.” He plucks one of the strawberries out of the rim and pops it into his mouth. “And ya kept trying even after the first time.”

Osamu jogs to the other side of the counter and returns with a pair of plates and forks. He pushes the first slice towards Keiji; it’s thicker than he expected it to be, and the plate is loaded with berries. Osamu gives himself an equally hefty serving.

He places his mouth shield down next to his plate. His fork cuts through the cake. He holds up the first bite to the light. When he finally eats the cake, he bounces in his seat. He scoops up a few strawberries from the plate.

Keiji follows suit, lowering his mask and digging into his own slice.

“Ya know when food tastes the best, Kaashi?”

“I have an idea,” Keiji answers, “but please, enlighten me.”

“When someone ya care about makes it for ya.”

Osamu grins at him, mouth stuffed with cake and fruit. His cheeks are full. Crumbs dot the corner of his lip. When he takes another bite, he closes his eyes. Revels in the soft, pillowy texture of the cake, with the tartness of the berries tickling his palate.

“Slow down,” Keiji warns him, weak against the smile that breaks out on his face. “The cake isn’t going anywhere.”

“It’s going to my mouth,” Osamu says between gulps of water, “and to my stomach.”

_Someone you care about._

“We forgot to light a candle.” Keiji sets his fork down, the clatter ringing through the restaurant as the Chet Baker song comes to an end.

“Doesn’t matter,” Osamu shrugs. “I’ve got everything I wished for right here.” He helps himself to another slice of cake. Lifts the fork to his mouth with the utmost care. Chews like he means it. To taste. To feed. To eat.

_Someone you care about._

Keiji takes one of the strawberry quarters. He’d been lucky to find a bunch that were at the peak of their ripeness.

Osamu slices a portion of the cake and transfers it to a separate plate. He disappears into the kitchen for the meantime. Keiji hears him beckoning his staff to have a taste of the cake, boasting about the texture and how “the acidity in the berries cuts through the richness of the cream cheese.”

Keiji puts the strawberry quarter in his mouth.

It’s sweet.

Time wounds. The impermanence of the seasons covers the world in ice and sets it aflame—ravages cities and tears skyscrapers apart like a heart in merciless hands. Hands on a clock can fasten love out of thin air one spring afternoon inside a crowded lecture hall; and they can take it away in the blink of an eye and a one-way flight to Paris all the same.

It is all the more unforgiving when it slows afterwards. It doesn’t fly. It bleeds out from where its wings once were. Breaks like the glass of a picture frame hurled into the creaks of an apartment floor. Even as new coffee shops opened in the street across the campus and the ink on his collection of French postcards began to bleed, it had taken Keiji months to budge from under the Rainbow Bridge. Every street corner he’d turned smelled of daisies and peach tea. Love came fast and left him slow.

Time heals, however. It sent Keiji on a moving truck from Minato to Chiyoda. Had him boarding the shinkansen almost every weekend during the V.League season to watch old friends and rivals alike. Pushed him to line up at an onigiri stall run by an almost-stranger from his memories of high school volleyball tournaments. Plucked the owner out of Hyogo and brought him to a place thirty minutes away from Keiji.

Shinjuku is not how Keiji remembers it to be. There are graffiti tags on the walls that he hadn’t seen in his childhood. Family-owned bakeries turned into franchise stores for bigger chains. Older car models no longer race against the stoplights switching from yellow to red. There are nooks in the ward that he can never find again. He cannot step into the same city twice.

But a quaint onigiri restaurant awaits him, with his presence immortalized in a photograph up on its wall and a chair reserved for him. No matter the season, no matter the place, a pair of calloused hands is shaping rice into mountains—in a restaurant kitchen, in a tiny, cramped up counter inside a studio apartment in Shinjuku. They have made their way past the door to Keiji’s apartment and left their mark on a black bento box; on the black shirt with an onigiri print that he wears to sleep; all over the nanohana onigiri he brings back to his apartment after finishing up the last slice of Osamu’s birthday rice cooker cake.

Those hands are steady. Those hands are home.

There, in an alley a stone’s throw away from Shinjuku Central Park, between an izakaya and what was once a frozen yogurt shop, beats Keiji’s heart painted navy blue, to the beat of three words thawed out of their centuries-long slumber.

Liked by **akaashi_keiji** and **115 others**

 **samumiya** Favorite customer. @akaashi_keiji

 **HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL** FIRST

 **HOSHIUMIKORAIOFFICIAL** NICE ONE SAMUMIYA

 **miyatsumu** I THOUGHT IT WAS ME WHAT THE HELL

 **miyatsumu** akaashi-kun the cake looks amazing. otsukare :D @akaashi_keiji

 **samumiya** @miyatsumu why would it be you

 **bokutobeam920** AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 **shinsuke** Happy for you both. <3

 **goingonaran** AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (2)

 **sunarin** is this what they taught u in business ethics

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. [Poem 50](https://www.jlit.net/premodernlit/hyakunin-isshu/poems_41-50.html) from [Hyakunin Isshu](https://100poets.wordpress.com/)  
> 2\. [aglio e olio](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/spaghetti-aglio-e-olio-recipe-2043225) recipe  
> 3\. there wasn't a specific steak recipe i was referencing for osamu. i was just riffing off of how i usually prepared it at home. if you want to know more about steak however, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFDElc5sfSM) is a good starter by Binging with Babish.  
> 4\. [Le pont Mirabeau](http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Apollinaire_Mirabeau.html)  
> 5\. the [article](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/09/07/national/japan-stress-coronavirus-survey/) on coronavirus stress and [other references used](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/covid-19-in-japan/)  
> 6\. special thanks to [moon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entremelement) for some of the song recs!  
> 7\. shoutout to the [adea](https://twitter.com/starryIanes) for being this fic's first reader and being my sounding board for all things osaaka. i think she's neat
> 
> thank you eternally to the mods of osaaka week & hq swift week!
> 
> twitter: [@msbyuu](twitter.com/msbyuu)  
> thank you for reading! kudos, comments, reaction memes and the like are always appreciated. stay healthy!


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